Friday 20 June

It started to rain while we were lying in bed, but didn't last for long. We caught the tram to town, in time for the first free guided tour which was offered with our bus ticket. However, we were told that there was no English speaking guide until 13:00. By this stage we had missed the free extra bus trip out of town to the castle, so we caught the same bus as yesterday.
This time we got off at a couple of places, including the suspension railway, which we caught up the hill and back.



We got back into the city in time for lunch, and the next set of guided tours, but, you've guessed it, no English speaking guide. So we wandered about on our own, looking in churches and shops. Dresden was 80% destroyed in Feb 1945, and the people still appear resentful that their city was picked on when the war was nearly over. So many of the city buildings have been rebuilt in the last 60 years, most in the last 20, since the East Germans did not care for such things. The much loved `Frauenkirche´ was re-consecrated only in 2005.

After walking our legs off we headed back over the river to catch he tram back to our part of town. On the way we passed 'the Golden Rider', one of the landmarks of the city and a good example of the Dresdners' love of gold on their monuments.

So we caught the tram back home, had tea, and prepared this post on the hostel's computer because they'd lost the WIFI log-in code, so we couldn't use our computer for internet, which meant we couldn't put any pictures on. (These were added later when we got to Prague).